


Just Look at the Ratings

by red_racer_fan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Pining, Pining Oikawa Tooru, Sort Of, The Bachelor AU, also iwaizumi is totally in love with him but wayyyy to dumb to realize it rn, game show au, its set as a post grad thing but oikawa hasn't gone to argentina yet, litteraly no one asked for this but here it is, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27738700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_racer_fan/pseuds/red_racer_fan
Summary: Iwaizumi is forcibly signed up to be the next Bachelor on a dating game show. Oikawa is less than pleased. In fact, you might say he's unhappy enough to beg the producers to let him on as a contestant, as a joke of course. Only Oikawa has no intention of going home.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 11
Kudos: 54





	Just Look at the Ratings

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wasn't going to post this but, I ended up re-reading it tonight and decided that I may as well. Anyways, here ya go.

“Please tell me you’re joking.” Iwaizumi says and Oikawa feels the temperature in the room drop. Iwa-chan sounds so serious that Oikawa is almost certain that someone’s died. 

He strains to hear what’s being said over the phone but it all just sounds like high pitch tinny noise. 

“Why would you do that?” Iwaizumi yells, he’s angry but also panicked. Oikawa won’t ever admit it, but when Iwaizumi gets genuinely panicked he starts to freak-out himself. He instinctively reaches out to Iwaizumi across the couch to hold his arm. “I don’t need your help.” Iwaizumi says into the phone, but when he curls his hand into his sleeve Iwaizumi looks up at him and flushes. Almost as though he forgot he was there. “I don’t want to get-” He takes a deep breath before continuing, “just cancel it, please.”

Relief floods Oikawa as he looks at Iwaizumi’s red face. His embarrassment means that this is something exciting, not life changingly awful. Oikawa grins. Iwaizumi frowns and stands up to start pacing. 

He stops. “Wait. Repeat that.” Oikawa listens to the crackle of the phone. 

“Are you for real right now? And they’ll just give it to me?”

There’s a long pause as Iwaizumi looks out their frankly filthy window. “I hate this. I want you to know that I hate this.” He turns around and looks at him. Oikawa smiles. Iwaizumi frowns. 

He takes another deep breath, “I’ll do it. I mean, they don’t actually expect you to get married for real right?”

Oikawa’s smile dies. It feels like someone replaced his heart with an ice-cube while he wasn’t looking and now cold water is pumping through his veins. He’s so much more afraid than he was when panic could have been anything. Because this sounds a lot like Iwaizumi is getting Married. Capital fucking M- Married. 

He misses some of their conversation but tunes back in to hear Iwaizumi asking to be sent the information. And then he’s hanging up.

“What was that about?” He demands, trying to hit casual but missing the mark by about a mile. 

“Promise me you won’t laugh.” 

Oikawa is so fucking far from laughing right now that the promise comes to him easy.

“My mom signed me up to be the bachelor on  _ 10 Down ‘till Love _ . And they said yes.”

It’s almost cosmically funny, he reflects later that night. That Iwa-chan, who always berated him for being a playboy, is now going to date ten women on reality TV. But in the moment all he can feel is a sinking dread. “No way.” He says, not because he doesn’t not believe him. But, because it’s the only thing he can even think to say.

“Yeah.” Iwaizumi flops back down onto the couch and pulls his arm over his eyes.

“What the hell. Why did you agree? What’s wrong with you?” He knows that this is the part where he should fake laugh and pretend this is all one big joke. But he can’t. Everything he says comes out bitter and harsh.

“Because they give the bachelor a prize of a million dollars to start their life together.” 

_ To start their life together.  _ It rattles around in his brain. “You’re doing this for money?” It seems almost unbelievable. Like something straight out of his nightmares in high school. He feels the tell-tale swell of panicked laughter building up.  _ Is this what a mental-breakdown feels like?  _

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but, we kind of live in a shithole.” Iwaizumi says, suddenly defensive. 

Oikawa laughs what has got to be the most hysterical and yet overwhelmingly fake laugh he’s ever given. Iwaizumi wants to not only move out of their apartment but wants to do so badly he’s willing to marry a complete stranger? Oikawa feels like his ice-cube heart melted and now all that’s left is a hollow cavity. 

“I thought you liked living here.”  _ with me.  _ He feels so cold.

Iwaizumi sighs, “I just think that this would make a real difference.”

_ For you Iwa-chan. What about me? Where am I going to go?  _

“That, and my mom has been putting a lot of pressure on me about dating and stuff lately. I probably won’t even have to go through with it at the end.”

He can feel the back of his throat getting sore and he knows he needs to leave before tears start to well-up in his eyes. 

“I just remembered I have a project due at 6am. I’m gonna go.” He grabs his backpack and walks out the door. Iwaizumi doesn’t even try to stop him. 

The sheer fear of embarrassment keeps him from having a breakdown in public long enough to get to the most empty coffee shop he can find. After he makes it through ordering whatever that chocolate thing on the menu was he grabs a seat at the back of the shop. It's almost empty aside from a homeless man and a stressed high school student. 

When the shop starts to look blurry he pulls the ratty alien hoodie he would never, ever, wear in public on purpose over his head and puts his face in his hands. He cries as quietly as he can.

He’d always pushed the idea of Iwaizumi seriously dating someone out of his mind. It hasn’t been an issue, well, ever. He’s had a fling or two but they’ve ended almost as quickly as they’d begun. It wasn’t like he sabotaged his relationships on purpose. 

He really did just want to watch movies with Iwaizumi. And if his desire to watch movies always fell on a day that Iwaizumi had a date it was a coincidence. And if Iwaizumi happened to prioritize him, that just made him a good friend. Even if it did make him a bad boyfriend.

But as he feels the warm tears on his face turn cool, he’s faced with the cold certainty of his situation. He knows he's in love with Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi is getting married. Iwaizumi doesn’t love him. Has never loved him. They were never going to end up together. It was impossible from the start. 

\---

Oikawa is a lot of things. He’s self-destructive. He’s possessive. He’s frivolous. He’s needy. He’s very possibly a bad friend. 

But he’s not a quitter. 

\---

At three AM, a twisted thought plants itself in his brain. He’s been obsessively researching  _ 10 Down ‘till Love  _ for the last five hours _.  _ It’s an average Bachelor show  _ except  _ that sometimes they introduce prank contestants. Like two years ago they brought in the Bachelor’s own cousin. And two years before that a woman twice his age.

He’s staring down at the contestant form. It doesn’t specify that he  _ needs  _ to be a woman. And if he plays this angle right, he thinks that they just might let him on. Maybe.

He thinks about what Hajime will do if he shows up. He shakes his head. He’ll cross that bridge when he’s done building it. 

As he fills in the form he tells himself that he's really helping Iwa-chan by signing up. Who wants to meet the person they want to spend the rest of their life with on a game show? Iwa-chan can do better than that. Then they can split the money and get a better apartment. 

He fills in the form and mentions that he’s Iwaizumi’s best friend and roommate and that he knows Iwaizumi has been selected. He hopes it’s enough to get him noticed.

It makes him feel better in the moment but, deep down he doesn’t expect it to go anywhere. 

\---

He gets a call about the role next week. 

They tell him not to tell Iwaizumi. 

He’s relieved for the excuse. 

\---

A month later Iwaizumi is packing his stuff in a suitcase and telling him he’ll see him in two months.

It’s been stilted between them. He can tell Iwaizumi feels guilty. A pre-emptive guilt about leaving him alone in their apartment not just for the duration of the show, but for whatever comes after. It makes him awkward and too forgiving. 

But he also feels guilty and that makes him push less than he normally would have. 

Iwaizumi hugs him like he’s never going to see him again. Despite knowing that he’ll be catching a flight the next day he returns it like his life depends on it. 

Iwaizumi pulls back and looks sincerely into his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He looks so sad that Oikawa really believes it.

“Me too.” He accidentally confesses. Iwaizumi looks confused. He covers it up, “You better get to your cab, you wouldn’t want to miss your flight.”

And then Iwa-chan is leaving. It’s only one night but the apartment feels empty without him.

\--

He straightens the lapels on his suit. He knows he looks good. It’s enough to keep him calm. 

Until the driver mentions that they’re about five minutes away. Then the realization of exactly what he’s done sinks in. He’s in the last limo. The final contestant to be introduced.

As the car is pulling up to the mansion, Oikawa can clearly visualize what’s about to happen.

He’s going to walk out of the limo and Hajime is going to kill him where he stands. 

Well, at least he’ll go to prison before he can marry someone else. 

Through the tinted windows of the limo he can see Iwa-chan standing at the entrance holding a rose. He’s never seen the dark blue suit he’s wearing before and figures he must have either got it for the show or been given it. He looks good. 

The driver is giving him a look from the rearview mirror and he knows he can’t stall anymore. Showtime.

He puts on his most charming smile and opens the door. “Ya-ho, Iwa-chan.”

Iwaizumi’s mouth drops open in shock. The rose falls from his fingers. 

“What are you doing here?” He says incredulously. Iwaizumi takes a step towards him.

Oikawa can’t tell how pissed Iwaizumi is but he’s already walking towards him hoping that his false confidence will trick Iwaizumi into not obliterating him on the spot. 

“You didn’t really think I was going to let you leave our apartment without a fight, right?” He teases and hopes his hands aren’t shaking.

Iwaizumi storms up to him and he braces himself for impact.

And then Iwaizumi is hugging him. It’s so different from the one they shared just 24 hours ago. He can feel his feet leave the ground as Iwaizumi lifts him ever so slightly and shakes him back and forth like a rag-doll.

And then Hajime is laughing. It’s like all their awkwardness from the past month has been washed away. Then he’s laughing too. 

When his lungs start to hurt from how tightly Hajime is holding him he reluctantly complains, “Okay, okay, put me down you brute.” 

Iwaizumi looks starstruck which he thinks is an appropriate reaction upon seeing him and that really he should look like that all the time.

“How did you even do this? What the hell, Oikawa?” He asks aggressively but he’s smiling so intensely Oikawa can’t help but smile too. 

“I have my ways.” He says waving his hand flippantly. Like this wasn’t the result of him sobbing in a coffee shop at three am. 

“And you're actually here as a contestant. For real.” 

Oikawa won’t tell him that they only chose him as a prank. Because he didn’t come here with the intention of getting voted out in the first round like all the other “joke” contestants. 

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

And then they’re just staring at each-other. 

Someone on the production crew coughs. Maybe not even on purpose. But it brings him back to the fact that they’re on reality TV right now. Iwaizumi blushes. 

“I guess, I should bring you inside.” Iwaizumi leads him into the mansion. 

“Wow, you’ve become such a gentleman. Are you sure you're my Iwa-chan?”

“Shut up, Shittykawa. I make you dinner, don't I?” 

“I suppose.” Oikawa latches on to his arm. 

Iwaizumi sighs but does nothing to shake him off. The nerves hit full force again as Iwa-chan leads him into the room with nine beautiful women. It’s like walking onto the volleyball court and the enemy team is already warming up. They’re playing to win just like him. But he has the home team advantage and he’s not afraid to use it. Yeah, they might be hundreds of kilometers from his actual home but he has Iwa-chan. And Iwa-chan can make anywhere feel like home. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I might continue this, I might not. I wrote this in a sort of in frenzy a while ago but I might pick it back up. Let me know what you think :)


End file.
